Day: March 23, 2010

The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica were made world-famous by the opening sequence of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when a mockup of one of the mysterious relics nearly crushed Indiana Jones. So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Global Indigenous Nations Studies Program, recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica where he and colleagues evaluated the stone balls for UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization that might grant the spheres World Heritage Status…

Hoopes, who researches ancient cultures of Central and South America, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Costa Rican spheres. He explained that although the stone spheres are very old, international interest in them is still growing.

“The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren’t really reported scientifically until the 1930s — so they’re a relatively recent discovery,” Hoopes said. “They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica.”

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica’s Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest…

Europe’s highest court ruled Google did not infringe trademark law by selling keywords to trigger ads after Louis Vuitton and others said the practice undermined their brands.

The Court of Justice of the European Union said advertisers were free to buy keywords identical to trademarks of rivals as long as consumers were not confused on the provenance of goods and services by the way ads were displayed online.

The court said that in cases where ads could confuse consumers, brand owners should invoke their rights against the advertisers concerned, not against Google — unless Google failed to act on a complaint or actively manipulated keywords.

Cripes. This part is a surprise. Sounds like the priorities of responsibility in the Robinson-Patman act in the U.S..

The ruling validates the AdWords paid-search business at the core of Google’s $23 billion online advertising operations, as well as the way competitors like Yahoo! sell ads, and gives brand owners a way to protect their trademarks.

The Nintendo DS family of game devices will soon have a successor, and its name is the 3DS.

According to Nintendo’s announcement, today, the 3DS will boast 3D gaming capability without requiring users to wear “any special glasses” to play titles.

The company said that the 3DS will “succeed [the] ‘Nintendo DS series.'” Perhaps most importantly, the 3DS will boast backward compatibility, allowing users to play games originally built for the Nintendo DS or DSi.

Nintendo was stingy with details. It didn’t indicate how the 3D functionality would work with the 3DS. It also failed to mention how much the console would cost or what games would ship with it. Nintendo plans to offer full details on the 3DS at the E3 show in June…

Then again, Nintendo has spent the last few years taking routes that were initially scoffed at. When it first announced the Wii game console, critics were doubtful about its broader market appeal. Nearly four years later, the Wii is the world’s most popular video game console.

Will Nintendo do it to everyone, again? Their competitors are still trundling along trying to promote mediocre knockoffs of Wii tech.

The study, by a Cornell University professor and his brother who is a Presbyterian minister and a religious studies professor, showed that the sizes of the portions and plates in the artworks, which were painted over the past millennium, have gradually grown by between 23 and 69 percent.

This finding suggests that the phenomenon of serving bigger portions on bigger plates, which pushes people to overeat, has also occurred gradually over the same time period, said Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

“The last thousand years have witnessed dramatic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food,” Wansink, author of “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” said in a statement.

“We think that as art imitates life, these changes have been reflected in paintings of history’s most famous dinner…”

The study found that, over the past 1,000 years, the size of the main meal has progressively grown 69 percent; plate size has increased 66 percent and bread size by about 23 percent.

Auto manufacturer Toyota warned dealerships in 2002 that Camry owners were complaining about throttles surging and recommended adjustments in an electronic control unit to fix the problem, according to a document obtained by CNN.

The technical service bulletin went to every U.S. Toyota dealership in late August 2002 after some customers reported their vehicles were speeding up unexpectedly.

“Some 2002 model year Camry vehicles may exhibit a surging during light throttle input at speeds between 38-42 mph,” the bulletin states. “The Engine Control Module (ECM) calibration has been revised to correct this condition…”

The internal Toyota document was given to CNN by a group of attorneys now seeking a nationwide class-action lawsuit against the company. Clarence Ditlow said the document — not previously made public — indicates Toyota knew much earlier about an electronic connection to sudden acceleration problems. He also said the bulletin was apparently ignored or hidden from the public not only by Toyota, but also by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. – emphasis added.

Democratic offices in at least three states have reported instances of vandalism that party members say possibly were tied to Sunday’s historic vote on health care reform.

Early Monday morning, a glass panel at the Tucson office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, was shattered, spokesman C.J. Karamargin said. It wasn’t clear how the window was shattered, but visitors have to go through a gated courtyard to enter the office, and staffers suspect someone may have shot a pellet gun at the glass, he said…

In upstate New York, two similar incidents were reported before Sunday night’s vote, according to CNN affiliate WHEC. A brick was thrown through the window of the Monroe County Democratic Committee headquarters in Rochester, and another was tossed through a window of Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter’s office in Niagara Falls early Friday…

Another incident was reported earlier in the weekend by the Sedgwick County Democratic Party in Kansas. Party Executive Director Lyndsey Stauble told CNN that a brick with anti-Obama and anti-health care messages was thrown at the headquarters sometime late Friday or early Saturday. Nothing was taken, and no one was injured, she said, adding that a bakery next door called police…

An Alabama-based blog…says it has launched a “window war” against Democrats and has kept a tally of the recent incidents of damage, including the ones in New York and Kansas.

Michael B. Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, told CNN…he called for people to break windows at Democratic headquarters at the city and county level. He said he didn’t call for the damages to congressional offices because, “I didn’t want to be responsible for anybody breaking a federal law…”

“My answer is violence, by getting their attention,” he said, adding, “If we can get across to the other side, that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that’s a good thing.”

The most corrupt political vermin gravitate to their own kind. Threats of violence escalate to overt acts of violence – and those who excuse such behavior are as corrupt as the dimwits they encourage.

Regulars here know what contempt I have for so-called anarchists who commit cruel and stupid acts of violence in the name of their purity. The history of American bigots is laced with as much violence and more. Do the bosses of the Republican Party think their reliance on mob threats would result in anything different?

OK. I calmed down a little bit. I watched a useful discussion, last night, among educated adults which included Ed Rollins. I hope his is the opinion, the guidance followed by his fellow Republicans. His description of the people I generally refer to as nutballs – is that they are despicable bigots and deserve no voice whatsoever in American politics.

I wait for Boehner and McConnell, good ol’ boys like Haley Barbour who wants to be president so bad he can taste it – to stand up like men and denounce these prototype Nazis – or will they put their hands in their pants and mumble something about how we all need more understanding?

Because that won’t stop the idiots who repudiate democracy, who would deny people’s right to vote and speak out.

BTW – It took Boehner and McConnell 3 days to stand up on their hind legs and denounce the vandals. Update: 25th March.

Google moved its China Internet search service to Hong Kong in a bid to resolve its dispute with Beijing over censored search results while keeping a foot in the world’s largest Internet market.

But comments on Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, suggested that Google’s attempt to strike a balance may not go over well with Beijing. Xinhua quoted a government official as saying Google has “violated its written promise” and is “totally wrong” by stopping censorship of its Chinese language search results.

Google said on Monday it intends to continue research and development work in China, as well as maintain a sales staff, even as it effectively stopped serving search results from its mainland Chinese site Google.cn and redirected traffic to an unfiltered search site in Hong Kong.

For the average mainland Chinese Web surfer, the change is unlikely to make much difference unless they can get around government-imposed firewalls that block searches for sensitive topics like the Dalai Lama…